Electronic mail (abbreviated as “email” or “e-mail”) is well known today. An email is sent from the originator or sender to one or more recipients identified by email address in the “to”, “carbon copy” and “blind carbon copy” fields of the email. Current email engines attempt to send the email to all recipients concurrently without control by the sender.
In some email systems, the recipients have some control on the timing of receipt of emails addressed to them. The process of transferring email messages to and from a mail server to a recipient of each of the emails in a batch mode is called “replication”. An email program at a client computer periodically (or at use request) replicates with its mail server at which time all emails generated at the client computer and selected for sending since the last replication are “pushed” to the mail server, and notifications of all emails waiting at the mail server for the client computer are added to and displayed in the list of unopened mail at the client computer. Another email program at another client computer for another recipient may then replicate the email message from the mail server.
In a web-based electronic mail program (webmail) a client may access the mail server and draft an email message in a user-interface operating on the client computer. Upon “sending” the email message, the mail server stores the email message in association with a recipient client. In web-based electronic mail programs, a copy is not typically stored on the client computer. A recipient client computer may access the server and allow a user to view a list of email messages in a user interface on the recipient client computer. The email message need not be stored on the recipient client computer. Some electronic mail programs are capable of both techniques at a user's discretion.
Emails can be used in a business work flow to communicate results of a work flow step. A workflow is a sequence of concatenated steps that depict a sequence of operations, declared as the work of a person, group, organization, or one or more simple or complex mechanisms. Existing workflow management solutions manage tasks such as automatic routing, partially automated processing and integration between different functional software applications and hardware systems that contribute to the value-addition process underlying the workflow.
Current workflow management systems include a client server application that moves a document of a work product to the next stage based on a predefined logic that is choreographed and stored in the back-end (server, database, middleware, etc.). Such systems require considerable effort and resources in installation, configuration, and maintenance.